History of Caldwell, (Essex County) New Jersey United States of America

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Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th President of the United States, was born in Caldwell, Essex county. N. J., March 18, 1837; son of the Rev. Richard Falley and Ann (Neal) Cleveland; grandson of Deacon William and Margaret (Falley), great-grandson of the Rev. Aaron and Abiah (Hyde), great-great grandson of the Rev. Aaron and Susannah (Porter), great-great-great grandson of Captain Aaron and Abigail (Waters), great-great-great-great grandson of Aaron and Dorcas (Wilson) Cleveland, and great-great-great-great-great grandson of Moses Cleaveland, who came to America from Ipswich, Suffolk, England, in 1635, settled in Woburn, Mass., in 1641, and was married Sept. 26, 1648, to Ann, daughter of Edward and Joanna Winn of Woburn. Richard Falley Cleveland was graduated from Yale in 1824; was ordained to the Presbyterian ministry in 1827; and was married in Baltimore, Md., to Ann Neal, daughter of a prosperous merchant of Irish birth. A number of years afterward they removed to Caldwell, Essex county, N. J., where their third son was born, and he was given the name of Stephen Grover, after his father's predecessor in the Caldwell church. In 1841 the family removed to Fayetteville, Onondaga county, N.Y., and here Grover attended the village school and served as a clerk in the village store. In 1853 his father was called to the Presbyterian church at Holland Patent, Oneida county, where he died a few weeks after his installation. The death of the father compelled Grover to abandon his expectation of a collegiate education, and he obtained a position as teacher in the Institute for the blind in New York City and remained there for one year. In 1855 he set out to find his fortune in the "far west" intending to locate in Cleveland, Ohio. Visiting his uncle, the Hon. Lewis F. Allen, at Buffalo, N.Y., he was persuaded to assist him in the preparation for the press of "Allen's Herd Book," upon the promise that on the completion of that work an effort would be made to give him an opportunity to study law. After ten weeks spent upon the herd book, a place was obtained for him in the law office of Rogers, Bowen and Rogers in Buffalo where on the 6th day of August, 1855, he began his legal studies. In 1859 he was admitted to the bar, but remained in the office of Rogers, Bowen and Rogers until Jan. 1, 1863, when he was appointed assistant district attorney for Erie county. In 1865 he was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for district attorney. He then took up the practice of law in partnership with Isaac V. Vanderpool, and in 1869 became a member of the firm of Lanning, Cleveland and Folsom. In 1870 he was the successful candidate for sheriff of the county and held the office for three years. In 1874 his law business was reorganized under the firm name of Bass, Cleveland and Bissell, afterward Cleveland and Bissell. In 1881 he received the Democratic nomination for mayor of Buffalo. While the Democratic state ticket was defeated in the city by 1600 votes, Mr. Cleveland was elected mayor by over 3500 majority. He introduced numerous reforms and checked various abuses, becoming known as the "veto mayor" by reason of his fearless exercise of executive power in guarding the public treasury and disallowing extravagant expenditures of public money. His fame as a reform mayor had extended throughout the state and the Democratic state convention of 1882 made him the nominee for governor. In the election he received a plurality of upwards of 200,000 over Charles J. Folger, who had resigned his position as secretary of the United States treasury to become a gubernatorial candidate. Mr. Cleveland continued, in his discharge of duty to the state, the system that had proved so popular in his adopted city, and his vetoes, though numerous, were all sustained by law. He claimed to be a servant or clerk of the people and to have an eye single to the interests of his employers. So popular had become his methods and so apparently honest his efforts for reform that the Democratic national convention, July 11, 1884, by vote of 683 out of 820, and which was made unanimous, nominated him as the Democratic candidate for the presidency of the United States. As the result of the election in November, 1884, in the electoral college in 1885 Grover Cleveland had 219 votes and James G. Blaine, 182, and of the popular vote Grover Cleveland received 4,911,017; James G. Blaine, 4,848,334; John P. St. John, 151,809, and Benjamin F. Butler, 133,825. Mr. Cleveland was inaugurated March 4, 1885, and at once announced as members of his cabinet, Thomas F. Bayard of Delaware, secretary of state; Daniel Manning of New York, secretary of the treasury; William C. Endicott of Massachusetts, secretary of war; William C. Whitney of New York, secretary of the navy; William F. Vilas of Wisconsin. postmaster-general; Augustus H. Garland of Arkansas, attorney-general, and Lucius Q. C. Lamar of Mississippi, secretary of the interior. He made Daniel S. Lamont, who had been his secretary while governor, private secretary to the President. The social functions of the White House were in charge of the President's sister, Rose Elizabeth Cleveland. The United States senate met in extra session on March 4, when the President withdrew from that body for executive consideration, a treaty under which the government assumed unusual and new duties in connection with the Nicaragua canal. He restored to the Indians their rights to the Oklahoma country by removing the white settlers; ordered a naval expedition to Aspinwall for the protection of Americans and their property against revolutionists; removed cattle companies and ranchmen with their herds from Indian lands without recourse to force and caused them to remove their fences erected on public lands. He outlined his purpose of adopting and enforcing important advances in civil service reform, and displeased the great body of his party at the outset of his administration by postponing the removal of Republican office holders save the heads of departments, foreign ministers and others on whom rested the responsibilities of executing the policy of the administration. He made offensive partisanship and neglect or incapacity the only causes for removal of minor officials and in this policy disappointed many of his political supporters, accustomed to a clean sweep on a change of party administration. Upon the assembling of the 49th congress, Dec. 8, 1885, the President in his message recommended the reduction of the tariff on necessaries of life; the abolition of duties on works of art; the suspension of compulsory silver coinage; the better pay of consular and diplomatic agents; the enlargement and improvement of the navy; the suppression of polygamy in Utah; the appointment of Indian commissioners; the extension of the principle of civil-service reform; provision for presidential succession; and reform in the matter of titles to public lands. He refused to submit to the senate documents relating to the removal of certain public officials, and the senate in turn threatened to withhold confirmation of presidential appointments. On March 1, 1886, the President in a message to the senate claimed that under the constitution the right of removal and suspension from office rested within the discretion of the President, and the papers relating thereto were of a private and personal nature. Ultimately the senate ratified most of the appointments of the President. The President vigorously and publicly complained of the insincerity of senators and representatives, as well as others, on whose advice he had to depend, for recommending notoriously unfit persons for office. He offered the protection of the government to the resident Chinamen subjected to outrages by antagonistic working men and finally ordered out the United States troops to suppress the disturbances. In a message dated April 22, 1886, the President recommended to the congress the creation of a labor commission, to be permanent officers of the government, to whom should be submitted all disputes between laborers and capitalists concerning wages or employment. Upon the close of the first session of the 49th congress, Aug. 5, 1886, the presidential vetoes numbered 115, of which 102 were private pension bills and six bills for the erection of public buildings. The river and harbor bill and the bill taxing oleomargarine, contrary to precedent, were not vetoed by the President. At the second session of the 49th congress, convened Dec. 6, 1886, the President sent in his second annual message, in which he recommended a reasonable restriction of Chinese immigration, coupled with assurances to the Chinese government of ample protection to its subjects already within our borders; and such guardianship as would insure them speedy and impartial trial if accused of crime committed in foreign countries, or rendition for trial if accused of crime committed at home. He repeated his recommendation made to the former congress for the abolition of the tax on foreign works of art; recommended a provision for the full recognition of the rights of property in the creations of the human intellect as applied to authors and inventors, in securing an international copyright; and directed attention to the large accumulation of revenue, suggesting that legislative action should relieve the people from the unnecessary burden of taxation, thus made apparent. He claimed that capital and labor would be made harmonious by reducing the tariff, thus lowering the prices of the necessaries of life then augmented by a superfluous tax. He brought again to the attention of the people the vast accumulation of coined silver and recommended a suspension of compulsory coinage, restricting the supply to the actual demand to meet the need of a circulatory medium. In the matter of pensions he reported the total amount paid from 1861 to 1886 to be $808,624,811.57, and that during the fiscal year then closed 40,857 new pensions had been allowed, and 2229 pensioners previously dropped from the rolls, restored. In closing this portion of his message he added: "As long as we adhere to the principle of granting pensions for service and disability as the result of the service, the allowing of pensions should be restricted to cases presenting these features." In the regulation of the differences between capital and labor he claimed the true solution to be that capital should, in recognition of the brotherhood of our citizenship and in the spirit of American fairness, generously accord to labor its just compensation and consideration, on the ground that labor is capital's best protection and faithful ally; and in the matter of the bankrupt Freedman's savings and trust company he maintained that it was the plain duty of the government to make good to depositors the $1,291,744.50 deposited in that institution and lost, in view of the general belief and understanding that inasmuch as the banks were largely under control of commissioned United States officers wearing the uniform of the army and naturally supposed to be agents of the government, the depositors were in a degree wards of the nation. On Jan. 17, 1887, the invalid pension bill was passed by the house by a vote of 180 to 76 and by the senate on the 27th without a discussion and on Feb. 11, 1887, the President returned it unsigned, giving at length his objections. On Feb. 24, 1887, a motion to pass the bill notwithstanding the veto was debated in the house but it failed to pass over the veto. On February 14, Secretary Manning resigned and on March 31, Charles S. Fairchild was appointed secretary of the treasury. In his message to the congress assembled Dec. 6, 1887, the President reiterated his former demand for a relief to a congested treasury, and stated that should no provision be made to stop the accumulation, by June, 1888, the surplus would exceed $140,000,000, which condition in no measure comported with the depleted monetary condition of the country. He devoted this message exclusively to recommending a radical reduction in the tariff, rather than extravagant appropriations with their demoralizing consequences. In this message he said, "It is a condition which confronts us, not a theory. Relief from this condition may involve a slight reduction of the advantages which we award over home productions but the entire withdrawal of such advantages would not be contemplated." This message placed the subject of tariff reform before congress; the Democratic advocates in the house were led by Roger Q. Mills of Texas, and the Republican protectionists by William McKinley, Jr., of Ohio. The Mills bill passed the house July 21, 1888, by a vote of 162 to 149, an almost strictly party vote, but failed to reach a vote in the senate before the adjournment of the 50th congress. Another important matter presented to the 50th congress by the President, was the fisheries treaty which was sent to the senate, Feb. 20, 1888. This treaty had been negotiated by commissioners consisting of Thomas F. Bayard, secretary of state, William L. Putnam of Maine and James B. Angell of Michigan on the part of the United States, and Joseph Chamberlain, L. S. Sackville-West and Charles Tupper on the part of Great Britain, and was signed at Washington, Feb. 15, 1888. The President recommended its immediate publication and discussion, which suggestion the senate adopted. On August 21, the senate refused to adopt the treaty by a vote of twenty-seven to thirty, and on the 23rd the President asked of congress fuller power to undertake retaliation in case harsh measures should become necessary in consequence of the rejection of the treaty. A bill such as the President asked for was passed by the house September 8, but the senate took no action and the subject remained undecided at the end of the session, no relief being furnished until Jan. 24, 1887, when the senate passed the act by a vote of forty-six to one. The President in his fourth annual message, at the second session of the 50th congress, Dec. 3, 1888, deprecated the widening of the gulf between the employers and the employed and regretted that the fortunes realized by the manufacturers resulted from the discriminating favor of the government and were largely built upon undue exactions from the masses of our people. He congratulated the people on the recovery of 80,000,000 acres of the public domain from illegal usurpation, improvident grants, and fraudulent entries and claims, to be taken for the homesteads of honest industry; on the rapid strides in the acquirements of practical education made by Indian youths in government schools, and on the general peace maintained with the Indian tribes. On February 1 the senate rejected the British extradition treaty. An act had been passed by the House May 21, 1888, making "the Department of Agriculture an executive department the head of which shall be a cabinet officer," which act was amended by the senate Sept. 21, 1888, referred to a conference committee, and finally reached the President Feb. 11, 1889, when he signed the bill and appointed Norman J. Colman of Missouri, secretary of agriculture and a member of the cabinet. Secretary Lamar resigned the portfolio of the interior, Jan. 8, 1888, and on the 16th the President appointed him associate justice of the supreme court. On January 12, Secretary Vilas resigned as postmaster-general to succeed to the department of the interior and Don M. Dickinson of Wisconsin was made postmaster-general. On Oct. 1, 1888, the President signed the Chinese exclusion bill. The Democratic national convention assembled at St. Louis, Mo., June 5, 1888, renominated Mr. Cleveland to the presidency, which nomination he accepted on Sept. 9, 1888. On November 6, he failed of an election, securing 168 electoral votes, and Benjamin Harrison, the Republican candidate, securing 233, while of the popular vote, Mr. Cleveland received 5,538,233, and Mr. Harrison, 5,440,216?98,017 less than the defeated candidate. On Oct. 20, 1888, congress adjourned after holding the longest session in its history. The term of Mr. Cleveland's first administration expired on March 4, 1889, and he removed to New York city where he engaged in the practice of law. In 1892 he was again a candidate before the Democratic national convention that met in Chicago, June 21, and by a vote of 617 out of 908, and against the emphatic protest of the delegation from his own state, he received the nomination for President. In the following November he was elected the 24th President of the United States, the electoral vote standing Cleveland, 277; Harrison, 145, and J. B. Weaver, 22. Of the popular vote he received 5,556,918; Harrison, 5,176,108; Weaver, 1,041,028. He was inaugurated March 4, 1893, and his cabinet was announced as follows: Walter Q. Gresham of Illinois, secretary of state; John G. Carlisle of Kentucky, secretary of the treasury; Daniel S. Lamont of New York, secretary of war; Richard Olney of Massachusetts, attorney-general; Wilson S. Bissell of New York, postmaster-general; Hilary A. Herbert of Alabama, secretary of the navy; Hoke Smith of Georgia, secretary of the interior; and J. Sterling Morton of Nebraska, secretary of agriculture. A special session of the senate confirmed the presidential appointments and immediately thereafter the President recalled from the senate a treaty pending before it for the annexation of Hawaii. Mr. Cleveland called an extra session of the 53rd congress to meet Aug. 7, 1893, to consider measures for the relief of the treasury and country, incident to a prevailing monetary crisis. At the close of his first term, he had left in the treasury a cash balance of over $281,000,000 of which more than $196,000,000 was gold. Mr. Harrison had left in the treasury, March 3, 1893, a cash balance of less than $146,000,000, of which less than $103,000,000 was gold. The appropriation made by congress had been excessively liberal and the McKinley tariff failed to supply the needed revenue. The country looked with alarm upon the gradual decrease in the gold reserve and feared that the treasury notes, provided for in the Sherman act, would be no longer redeemed in gold. President Cleveland announced, through Secretary Carlisle, that the gold payment would be maintained at all hazard, and this announcement checked the panic for the time; but in May the banks began to break, India closed her mints to the free coinage of silver, and the price of silver bullion fell. In his message the President strongly urged the repeal of the silver purchase act of July 14, 1890. This policy divided the Democratic party and on November 1, after a protracted and exhaustive debate, the bill known as the Voorhees bill, a substitute for the Wilson repeal bill, was adopted, the house concurring in the senate amendment, and it received the approval of the President on the same day. On November 3 the Chinese exclusion bill was passed by the senate, becoming a law by the approval of the President, and both houses adjourned to meet in regular session, Dec. 4, 1893. [p.265] In his message to congress the President urged a revision of the McKinley tariff. The tariff bill introduced Dec. 19, 1893, became known as the Wilson bill, and after various amendments and radical changes in the senate, was passed. The President declared it to justify the suspicion of "perfidy and dishonor," but allowed it to become a law without his signature, for reasons expressed August 27, in a letter to Representative Catchings. He vetoed the Bland seigniorage substitute for the silver bill on March 30, 1895, and it failed to pass over the veto. On March 17, 1894, the President concluded a treaty with China embodying the immigration restriction acts passed by congress. On Sept. 27 1894, he proclaimed amnesty to certain persons accused of practising polygamy under the teachings of the Mormon church. A boundary dispute between Brazil and the Argentine Republic was decided by the President, as arbitrator, Feb. 6, 1895, in favor of Brazil. He also arbitrated disputes between Colombia and Italy and between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. On June 10, 1895, the President appointed Attorney-general Olney to the vacancy in the department of state, caused by the death of Secretary Gresham, and Judson Harmon of Ohio, to the head of the department of justice thus made vacant. On March 1, 1895, Postmaster-general Bissell resigned and William L. Wilson of West Virginia was appointed as his successor. Mr. Cleveland published his Venezuelan message Dec. 17, 1895, and was accused of "jingoism." The supreme court, on May 20, 1895, declared the income tax unconstitutional and the tax already collected was refunded. President Cleveland's foreign policy included the recognition of the independence of the Republic of Hawaii, Aug. 8, 1894; a new treaty made with Japan, Nov. 23, 1894, and the treaty with China, ratified Dec. 7, 1894. On March 1, 1895, the American ministers at Pekin and Tokio brought China and Japan together in a peace conference, and on June 7, 1895, China thanked the President for promoting peace in the Orient. On Aug. 22, 1896, Secretary Smith of the interior having resigned, David R. Francis of Missouri took his place. These constituted all the changes in the cabinet during Mr. Cleveland's second term. The first bond issue of $50,000,000, to supply gold for the needs of the treasury department, was made Jan. 14, 1894; the second of $50,000,000, Nov. 13, 1894; the third of $62,400,000, Feb. 8, 1895, and the fourth of $100,000,000, Jan. 6, 1896. Mr. Cleveland applied the civil service rules to the internal revenue department, Dec. 12, 1895; to the pension department, July 19, 1895; to the consular service where salaries did not reach $2500 per year, Sept. 23, 1895, and on May 6, 1896, practically all subordinates in the civil service of the government were brought under the rules of the civil service. His diplomatic services to the country were marked by the satisfactory conclusion of the Venezuela arbitration with Great Britain, Feb, 2, 1897, and by a treaty of permanent arbitration between Great Britain and the United States so far as executive authority could extend, by submitting it to the U.S. senate, Jan. 11, 1897. In the presidential campaign of 1896, Mr. Cleveland announced his political preference for Palmer and Buckner, and in April, 1897, supported his previous policy as an advocate of tariff reform and of a single gold standard in a speech before the Reform club of New York city. Mr. Cleveland was married, June 2, 1886, to Frances, daughter of Oscar Folsom, his former law partner, and Mrs. Cleveland contributed in no small degree to the personal popularity of the President. Upon retiring from the presidency he made his home in Princeton, N. J. On Dec. 17, 1901, he was appointed one of twelve citizens to represent the public on the board of arbitration of the Industrial Department of the National Civic Federation.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

History of Caldwell, (Essex County) New Jersey

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